KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- The commander of Air Education and Training Command toured units across the 81st Training Wing and held a commander's call here Aug. 12 as part of his first base visit in AETC.
Lt. Gen. Darryl Roberson, accompanied by his wife, Cheryl, and AETC Command Chief Master Sergeant Gerardo Tapia, visited with Airmen, saw their work environments and listened to their concerns.
“This is the first time in my 32-year career that I have been on Keesler Air Force Base, and it’s pretty amazing,” said Roberson. “I can’t believe what I’ve been missing for so long.”
During the commander’s call, Roberson shared his philosophy on leadership and how it is vital to AETC operations and the overall mission of the Air Force. Roberson highlighted to Airmen his four priorities: Airmen and family, mission, innovation and leadership.
“In AETC, I will tell you that the leadership we have and need at every level is, to me, personally stronger than it is needed out in the other commands,” said Roberson. “The dynamics of taking young Americans and training them the way we need to and developing them into the type of Airmen we need means we need the strongest leaders to guide them in the right direction.”
Roberson also encouraged Keesler Airmen to develop his idea of the Three C’s: competence, care and character.
“If you demonstrate competence, care and character in its basic form, it will equal trust in the people who are following you,” said Roberson. “If you violate these basic principles then you are going to have a hard time getting people to follow you, and then you are wasting your time. That trust is what we are after.”
He also stressed that the trust created at all levels of leadership contribute to the overall mission of providing America’s air power.
“Air power-- because without it you lose,” he emphasized. “That’s so true. It takes every single one of us in our Air Force to produce air power. I don’t care what your Air Force Specialty Code is. I don’t care what you are doing. No matter what it is, it’s all building to air power, and that’s critical to what we do, our country and our way of life.
“There are countries that envy our military, but they fear the Air Force because of what we do and what our air power brings,” he continued. “You are all part of this air power that is such an asymmetric advantage to warfighting that no one else can replicate it. Air power starts here in AETC. This is the first command. This is where it all begins. It is all of you who make that happen.”
As the commander of the 81st TRW, Col. Michele Edmondson had her opportunity to show off the wing Airmen and believes Team Keesler is fortunate to have Roberson and his family leading AETC.
“If you look at Gen. Roberson’s biography and all that he has accomplished, you will see that he is a warfighter and a leader,” said Edmondson. “Starting from the days of graduating from the Air Force Academy, going to Euro-NATO joint jet pilot training, Thunderbird pilot, Congressional Fellow on Capitol Hill, squadron and group commander, three wing commands, 3rd Air Force and 17th Expeditionary Air Force commander. He has over 5,000 flying hours and almost 900 combat hours. He is a leader who understands what the warfighter needs.”
Roberson left Team Keesler with the challenge for everyone to become better leaders at all levels and to use competence, care and character to take great Americans and mold them into amazing Airmen producing air power to make the Air Force even stronger.